Wyoming families carrying burden of energy taxes and incentives

By the time you get your bill, it’s too late. Wyoming customers of Rocky Mountain Power are reeling after the company requested a 14.7% rate hike, following earlier increases this year of 5.5% and 9.3%. The company attributes the latest hike to wildfire risk and investments in renewable energy, offering little comfort to the thousands of customers watching their electric bills soar.

Governments at all levels are spending trillions of dollars to transition the country to so-called renewable energies like wind and solar. They justify this investment by citing statistics that claim these sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, but these numbers are often criticized as only applying when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. To provide the consistent energy Wyoming residents need, coal remains essential.

The fact that Rocky Mountain Power customers are seeing higher rates as the company invests in renewable energy reveals the fallacy of thinking these technologies will lower costs. On the other hand, Wyoming exports more electricity than it consumes, raising the question: why are residents being subjected to rising rates?

Decisions about divesting from fossil fuels, how much electricity to export, and even how to manage wildfire risks are made by politicians and the bureaucrats who serve them. Yet, voters rarely consider their electric bills when casting ballots. Is the candidate you’re voting for in the Legislature likely to support policies that increase your bills? Will the governor’s political appointees choose to export more electricity while charging you to build additional wind and solar farms?

Last year, several bills aimed at increasing taxes on wind companies failed to pass the Wyoming Legislature. One bill sought to repeal a three-year tax exemption for the industry. Currently, wind companies are charged $1 per megawatt hour of generated electricity, but only starting in their fourth year of operation. Industry leaders argued that such measures would reduce investment in Wyoming’s wind sector, even though these companies already receive $27.50 in federal credits for every megawatt hour produced in their first ten years.

The energy industry operates under a Byzantine system of taxes and incentives, with governments at every level distorting the economic playing field. In the end, it’s the citizens who lose—paying for this social engineering both directly, through their electric bills, and indirectly, through taxes that subsidize these industries.

We need leaders at the state and national levels who will put citizens first — not green energy schemes that only seem to drive prices higher.